Rachel this piece was so well written that I had tears in my eyes while reading it as well as feelings of such sorrow for the Dad and the son who finally broke through the shadow. I agree with Matt's comment about Jimmy Stewart's character George in It's A Wonderful Life, one of my all time favorite holiday movies... here we also see a man trapped in the shadow of following in his father's career footsteps all the while trying desperately to escape them.
It also saddens me that this pattern has been, for years, so much more prevalent in the male species, it can be such a heavy burden to bear for both the father and son.
Thank you, Mom. I really appreciate your thoughtful response—and I loved what you said about It’s a Wonderful Life. That tension between obligation and desire, especially in the shadow of a parent’s path, runs so deep in both stories.
I also agree—it’s especially heartbreaking how often this dynamic plays out between fathers and sons. That kind of pressure can be such a heavy legacy to carry. I’m so grateful to you and Dad for never putting that weight on me or the boys.
Thanks, as always, for reading and supporting me. Love you!
Rachel, the truth of this dynamic as you describe it is devastating to consider.
"Ultimately, the shadows cast by parents fall longest across their children’s lives. For the child, shadow transference creates an impossible bargain: accept the parent’s projections and forfeit authenticity, or reject them and risk losing love. When parents cannot tolerate their own ordinariness, children come to believe that being ordinary is a kind of failure."
As both a son and a parent, I am implicated, concerned about the extent this is true in my own relationships, and sobered to know that this is not a one-and-done dynamic to root out, but an ongoing issue requiring vigilant awareness.
It's even more complicated given that our parents supply us with virtues, and inspirations that are wholesome and life positive, and that they mix in with shadow elements that parade under culturally-acceptable banners and are difficult to spot. I both honor the character of my father by following the modeling of his strengths and saddle myself and his grandchildren with a burden by trying to live up to an impossible standard.
Rick, thank you so much for this thoughtful response. I really appreciate the care and reflection in your words—it means a lot. I completely agree: one of the most complicated pieces of this dynamic is how tightly the virtues and the shadow elements are woven together. The same modeling that can shape our strength and integrity can also quietly lay the groundwork for impossible standards we never quite stop trying to meet.
And yes, it’s not a dynamic we solve once and move on from—it’s something that keeps resurfacing in new forms, especially in the roles of parent, partner, or leader. I think just being willing to notice it with honesty and humility, the way you’ve done here, is a huge part of what breaks the cycle.
Your writing, in addition to being consistently exquisite, always yields such rich opportunities for self-reflection Rachel. Thank you for your essays.
Ahh Rachel, I knew this one was for me the moment I saw the picture and title. It’s such a good play. I didn’t appreciate Death of a Salesman when I first read it in high school but remember it well my second time reading it in college. I literally got up and went to a remote corner of the library when I got into the back half of the second act. (Ugh, allergies, who brought the damn onions to the library 😢🤣)
It was early in the spring semester, not long after I’d gotten back to school, the connection of DOAS and It’s A Wonderful Life (a movie I’d watched a couple weeks earlier, I watch it every holiday now) was emotionally overwhelming, made me realize this shadow is often passed down through generations, for many aspects of life, career, sense of worth, raising children, etc. The movie does a good job at the dinner table scene with George and his dad making George less of a victim than Biff is in the play but this shadow concept you wrote about feels as real today as I’m sure it did in the late 40s back when this was written and the movie came out.
Magnificent writing. As always, thanks for making these connections on the page and articulating them so well. I was lucky with this one in it’s something I’ve long thought about but I’m sure there will be some readers who have a similar reaction to those men in the theater. We’re all lucky to have read this. Well done!
Matt, this might be one of the kindest and most beautifully reflective comments I’ve ever received—thank you. I’m so glad this one resonated with you, and I loved reading your memory of escaping to a quiet corner of the library (“who brought the damn onions” 🤧🤣). That really says everything about the emotional depth of the second act—and how personal this story becomes once we start to see the deeper layers.
I love your connection between Death of a Salesman and It’s a Wonderful Life. That’s such a rich pairing—two men caught in the tangle of self-worth, family, and legacy, but with very different outcomes. You're so right that the shadow in DOAS feels just as relevant now, maybe even more so, especially in the way it shows how much of what we carry can come from the dreams—and pain—of the generation before us.
Thank you again, truly. Comments like this are the reason I keep writing and sharing.
Not unlike the businessmen in the theater that night, I’m speechless after reading this. My only experience with this story was the movie version with Dustin Hoffman which was, in my opinion, incomprehensible.
This touches me deeply on so many levels - my own family dynamic, although my father was very successful, my own struggles with maintaining a veneer of happiness and engagement in a corporate career I never wanted, and society’s view of an ordinary life as failure.
Thank you (and your editor!) for such a clear and thought provoking essay.
Lee, thank you so much for this incredibly generous response. I’m really touched that the essay resonated with you on multiple levels. What you shared about your own family and your experience in a corporate life you didn’t choose—that’s exactly the kind of real, quiet truth I was hoping to explore. It’s something so many people live with, often without a name for it.
And yes—endless thanks to my editor too! I'm so grateful to know the piece landed for you. Thank you for reading and for sharing this.
Claire, thank you so much—that really means a lot, especially coming from you. I had a similar experience revisiting the play—it hit so much harder than I remembered, especially through the lens of everything we now know about identity, projection, and generational dynamics. Definitely worth a reread if it finds its way to you.
So grateful for your words—and for your work, which always inspires me.
Rachel, just when I thought you couldn’t improve on the Macbeth piece, you go and write something of this quality! It’s a privilege reading your work.
I was hooked from the first sentence. I love learning about stories like that. What I didn’t realise was that my wonder at hearing about what happened on the opening night would be dwarfed by my awe at your intelligent analysis of Miller’s play, its symbolism and how it explores Jungian shadow-blindness and projection.
Simon, thank you so much—what a generous note. That opening night anecdote hooked me too—I couldn’t stop thinking about what it must’ve felt like to be in that audience, not even fully understanding why you’re crying. I’m so glad the deeper layers of the piece landed for you as well. That means a lot.
Thanks again for reading and for always showing up with such thoughtful encouragement.
Beautifully written and impactful. Striving and working towards goals are essential parts of living, but joy and happiness in life are the key ingredients to success. We must all remember and honor this question — “Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be?”
Thank you so much, Judy. I really appreciate your kind words—and I love the way you framed that tension. Striving itself isn’t the problem; it’s when we strive in the wrong direction, toward someone else’s definition of a good life, that it becomes so corrosive. That question that Miller gives us—“Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be?”—is such a quiet gut-punch, and such an important one to keep returning to.
Thanks again for reading and reflecting with me. I'm so glad it resonated.
Rachel, I won’t repeat much of what has been said here. While the play itself was/is powerful, your perspectives and the way you frame them deeply contribute to your readers. They raise the awareness of our ways of being and the agency we have over our choices to be ourselves and take on the subconscious ways of being we inherit from those around us.
Thank you so much, James. I really appreciate your thoughtful response—and I’m especially glad the essay resonated not just in terms of the play, but in how these dynamics continue to show up in our own lives. That question of inherited ways of being—what we choose, what chooses us—is one I keep circling back to, and your comment captures it beautifully.
And yes, all credit to Sandra and Brigitte for helping me shape it into what it became. Grateful for your reading and presence here.
"Like a child scribbling a better version of himself in crayon, he draws over the reflection he cannot bear to see.
There lies the shadow, hiding in plain sight. The world becomes our mirror, reflecting back the traits the psyche most longs to deny."
Your explanation of the shadow, how it works in us and how we both inherit certain aspects of it from our parents as well as pass them on to our children was done is such seemingly simple terms-- easy to understand for people who are not so familiar with these ideas. I commend you for that part--
And then the use of DOAS to illustrate how this plays out in our lives was brilliant. This whole topic of the expectations we have for the roles men and women are still pushed into is what I love exploring as well. This piece definitely has me curious to reread the play after decades since high school.
Again, thank you for sharing your heart and mind with all of us. We are all richer for it.
What a thoughtful and generous response. I really appreciated what you said about clarity—translating complex ideas into something that feels grounded and graspable is always the challenge (and the hope), so that part especially meant a lot.
I also love that you’re drawn to the same themes around gendered roles and expectations. It’s such rich, emotionally charged territory, and Death of a Salesman lays it bare in such a haunting way. I’d be fascinated to hear your perspective if you return to the play after all these years—it holds up in ways I didn’t expect.
Grateful for your insight, and for the way you read.
Thank you so much, Karl—I'm really glad the essay helped bring the concept of the shadow into clearer focus. That question about the flip side is such a good one. When a parent is the model of social success, the pressure can be just as intense—only instead of striving for visibility, the child might be burdened with maintaining or measuring up to a legacy. The shadow doesn’t disappear in that dynamic; it just shifts shape. Thanks again for reading and for sharing such a thoughtful reflection.
Rachel this piece was so well written that I had tears in my eyes while reading it as well as feelings of such sorrow for the Dad and the son who finally broke through the shadow. I agree with Matt's comment about Jimmy Stewart's character George in It's A Wonderful Life, one of my all time favorite holiday movies... here we also see a man trapped in the shadow of following in his father's career footsteps all the while trying desperately to escape them.
It also saddens me that this pattern has been, for years, so much more prevalent in the male species, it can be such a heavy burden to bear for both the father and son.
Well done as usual my precious, beloved daughter!
Thank you, Mom. I really appreciate your thoughtful response—and I loved what you said about It’s a Wonderful Life. That tension between obligation and desire, especially in the shadow of a parent’s path, runs so deep in both stories.
I also agree—it’s especially heartbreaking how often this dynamic plays out between fathers and sons. That kind of pressure can be such a heavy legacy to carry. I’m so grateful to you and Dad for never putting that weight on me or the boys.
Thanks, as always, for reading and supporting me. Love you!
I bet you’re proud! As you should be Mary. 😊
Rachel, the truth of this dynamic as you describe it is devastating to consider.
"Ultimately, the shadows cast by parents fall longest across their children’s lives. For the child, shadow transference creates an impossible bargain: accept the parent’s projections and forfeit authenticity, or reject them and risk losing love. When parents cannot tolerate their own ordinariness, children come to believe that being ordinary is a kind of failure."
As both a son and a parent, I am implicated, concerned about the extent this is true in my own relationships, and sobered to know that this is not a one-and-done dynamic to root out, but an ongoing issue requiring vigilant awareness.
It's even more complicated given that our parents supply us with virtues, and inspirations that are wholesome and life positive, and that they mix in with shadow elements that parade under culturally-acceptable banners and are difficult to spot. I both honor the character of my father by following the modeling of his strengths and saddle myself and his grandchildren with a burden by trying to live up to an impossible standard.
Rick, thank you so much for this thoughtful response. I really appreciate the care and reflection in your words—it means a lot. I completely agree: one of the most complicated pieces of this dynamic is how tightly the virtues and the shadow elements are woven together. The same modeling that can shape our strength and integrity can also quietly lay the groundwork for impossible standards we never quite stop trying to meet.
And yes, it’s not a dynamic we solve once and move on from—it’s something that keeps resurfacing in new forms, especially in the roles of parent, partner, or leader. I think just being willing to notice it with honesty and humility, the way you’ve done here, is a huge part of what breaks the cycle.
Thank you again for reading so generously.
Your writing, in addition to being consistently exquisite, always yields such rich opportunities for self-reflection Rachel. Thank you for your essays.
Wow, thank you. That feels like especially high praise coming from you ◡̈
Wow Rick. thank you for adding an even deeper dimension to an already incredibly deep and beautiful essay.
Ahh Rachel, I knew this one was for me the moment I saw the picture and title. It’s such a good play. I didn’t appreciate Death of a Salesman when I first read it in high school but remember it well my second time reading it in college. I literally got up and went to a remote corner of the library when I got into the back half of the second act. (Ugh, allergies, who brought the damn onions to the library 😢🤣)
It was early in the spring semester, not long after I’d gotten back to school, the connection of DOAS and It’s A Wonderful Life (a movie I’d watched a couple weeks earlier, I watch it every holiday now) was emotionally overwhelming, made me realize this shadow is often passed down through generations, for many aspects of life, career, sense of worth, raising children, etc. The movie does a good job at the dinner table scene with George and his dad making George less of a victim than Biff is in the play but this shadow concept you wrote about feels as real today as I’m sure it did in the late 40s back when this was written and the movie came out.
Magnificent writing. As always, thanks for making these connections on the page and articulating them so well. I was lucky with this one in it’s something I’ve long thought about but I’m sure there will be some readers who have a similar reaction to those men in the theater. We’re all lucky to have read this. Well done!
Matt, this might be one of the kindest and most beautifully reflective comments I’ve ever received—thank you. I’m so glad this one resonated with you, and I loved reading your memory of escaping to a quiet corner of the library (“who brought the damn onions” 🤧🤣). That really says everything about the emotional depth of the second act—and how personal this story becomes once we start to see the deeper layers.
I love your connection between Death of a Salesman and It’s a Wonderful Life. That’s such a rich pairing—two men caught in the tangle of self-worth, family, and legacy, but with very different outcomes. You're so right that the shadow in DOAS feels just as relevant now, maybe even more so, especially in the way it shows how much of what we carry can come from the dreams—and pain—of the generation before us.
Thank you again, truly. Comments like this are the reason I keep writing and sharing.
Not unlike the businessmen in the theater that night, I’m speechless after reading this. My only experience with this story was the movie version with Dustin Hoffman which was, in my opinion, incomprehensible.
This touches me deeply on so many levels - my own family dynamic, although my father was very successful, my own struggles with maintaining a veneer of happiness and engagement in a corporate career I never wanted, and society’s view of an ordinary life as failure.
Thank you (and your editor!) for such a clear and thought provoking essay.
Lee, thank you so much for this incredibly generous response. I’m really touched that the essay resonated with you on multiple levels. What you shared about your own family and your experience in a corporate life you didn’t choose—that’s exactly the kind of real, quiet truth I was hoping to explore. It’s something so many people live with, often without a name for it.
And yes—endless thanks to my editor too! I'm so grateful to know the piece landed for you. Thank you for reading and for sharing this.
Wow. I could say and take so many things from this. Extraordinary writing and connection of ideas, as always.
I haven’t read the play since I was a kid and I don’t remember it like this. One to find and reread for sure.
Claire, thank you so much—that really means a lot, especially coming from you. I had a similar experience revisiting the play—it hit so much harder than I remembered, especially through the lens of everything we now know about identity, projection, and generational dynamics. Definitely worth a reread if it finds its way to you.
So grateful for your words—and for your work, which always inspires me.
Rachel, just when I thought you couldn’t improve on the Macbeth piece, you go and write something of this quality! It’s a privilege reading your work.
I was hooked from the first sentence. I love learning about stories like that. What I didn’t realise was that my wonder at hearing about what happened on the opening night would be dwarfed by my awe at your intelligent analysis of Miller’s play, its symbolism and how it explores Jungian shadow-blindness and projection.
Simon, thank you so much—what a generous note. That opening night anecdote hooked me too—I couldn’t stop thinking about what it must’ve felt like to be in that audience, not even fully understanding why you’re crying. I’m so glad the deeper layers of the piece landed for you as well. That means a lot.
Thanks again for reading and for always showing up with such thoughtful encouragement.
Beautifully written and impactful. Striving and working towards goals are essential parts of living, but joy and happiness in life are the key ingredients to success. We must all remember and honor this question — “Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be?”
Thank you so much, Judy. I really appreciate your kind words—and I love the way you framed that tension. Striving itself isn’t the problem; it’s when we strive in the wrong direction, toward someone else’s definition of a good life, that it becomes so corrosive. That question that Miller gives us—“Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be?”—is such a quiet gut-punch, and such an important one to keep returning to.
Thanks again for reading and reflecting with me. I'm so glad it resonated.
Rachel, I won’t repeat much of what has been said here. While the play itself was/is powerful, your perspectives and the way you frame them deeply contribute to your readers. They raise the awareness of our ways of being and the agency we have over our choices to be ourselves and take on the subconscious ways of being we inherit from those around us.
Thank you, and a hat tip to Sandra and Brigitte!
Thank you so much, James. I really appreciate your thoughtful response—and I’m especially glad the essay resonated not just in terms of the play, but in how these dynamics continue to show up in our own lives. That question of inherited ways of being—what we choose, what chooses us—is one I keep circling back to, and your comment captures it beautifully.
And yes, all credit to Sandra and Brigitte for helping me shape it into what it became. Grateful for your reading and presence here.
Rachel, so many profound comments here already.
Love these lines:
"Like a child scribbling a better version of himself in crayon, he draws over the reflection he cannot bear to see.
There lies the shadow, hiding in plain sight. The world becomes our mirror, reflecting back the traits the psyche most longs to deny."
Your explanation of the shadow, how it works in us and how we both inherit certain aspects of it from our parents as well as pass them on to our children was done is such seemingly simple terms-- easy to understand for people who are not so familiar with these ideas. I commend you for that part--
And then the use of DOAS to illustrate how this plays out in our lives was brilliant. This whole topic of the expectations we have for the roles men and women are still pushed into is what I love exploring as well. This piece definitely has me curious to reread the play after decades since high school.
Again, thank you for sharing your heart and mind with all of us. We are all richer for it.
What a thoughtful and generous response. I really appreciated what you said about clarity—translating complex ideas into something that feels grounded and graspable is always the challenge (and the hope), so that part especially meant a lot.
I also love that you’re drawn to the same themes around gendered roles and expectations. It’s such rich, emotionally charged territory, and Death of a Salesman lays it bare in such a haunting way. I’d be fascinated to hear your perspective if you return to the play after all these years—it holds up in ways I didn’t expect.
Grateful for your insight, and for the way you read.
Thanks Rachel. I'm building a list of books, plays, movies to get back to from reading your essays.
I love that!
This piece finally fleshed out for me what has been concept - the shadow. Powerful writing.
I wonder about it's flip side when the parent is the social model of success and the pressures the children then inherit.
Thank you so much, Karl—I'm really glad the essay helped bring the concept of the shadow into clearer focus. That question about the flip side is such a good one. When a parent is the model of social success, the pressure can be just as intense—only instead of striving for visibility, the child might be burdened with maintaining or measuring up to a legacy. The shadow doesn’t disappear in that dynamic; it just shifts shape. Thanks again for reading and for sharing such a thoughtful reflection.